An NCAA Tournament berth isn’t new to Missouri. The Tigers haven’t missed the Big Dance since seniors Sophie Cunningham and Cierra Porter stepped on campus for the 2015-16 season. Since their arrival, Missouri is 3-4 in the SEC Tournament and 2-3 in the NCAA Tournament.
That success has brought higher expectations to the program; victories over BYU and South Florida in the 2016 and 2017 NCAA Tournaments raised the standard for Missouri. That’s what made last season’s first-round exit to FGCU so surprising. The fifth-seeded Tigers fell 80-70 to the Eagles, despite Cunningham dropping 35 points.
A year later Missouri had its fourth consecutive 20-plus win season, went to the SEC Tournament semifinal for the first time in school history and finished as a seventh seed in the Greensboro region. But more importantly, the Tigers have the lessons from last season’s defeat.
FGCU spaced the floor and rained in threes against the Tigers last season. The Eagles went 7-17 from the three-point line, outscored Missouri 38-14 off the bench, and had 38 points in the paints despite being a much smaller team.
“I think we learned a lot from Florida Gulf Coast on the defensive and offensive end,” junior Amber Smith said. “Us veterans have put that in our back pockets… We can’t take a game for granted. Even the lowest seed can upset anybody.”
According to head coach Robin Pingeton, Missouri wasn’t in the best place heading into the matchup against FGCU. Last season there was a feeling that the team peaked too early in the season. It led to a decline in play at the most pivotal moments for Missouri. This year has been the complete opposite for the Tigers.
“We had a rough start to the season,” junior Jordan Roundtree said. “We always kept telling each other at least we haven’t peaked yet, we’re going to peak at the right time.”
That mindset helped the Tigers are head into postseason play with more confidence than a year ago. The team is in a much better place this season after victories over Florida and Kentucky in the SEC Tournament. Missouri seems to be hitting its stride right on time this season.
“We’ve had some really good practices the past week or so,” Roundtree said. “The tournament was fun. Obviously, we didn’t get what we wanted to get done but we had a couple of tough wins. Kentucky was a tough win and I think that gave us momentum even though we lost the day after.”
Drake (27-6) blew through the Missouri Valley Conference. Juniors Becca Hittner and Sara Rhine led the conference in scoring and the Bulldogs opened conference play with seven straight victories by an average of 20.5 points per game. Drake’s only conference loss was Missouri State and the Bears went on to win the MVC Tournament on March 17.
The Bulldogs led the conference in field goal percentage and three-point percentage this season. Drake shot 36 percent from deep and finished 24th in the nation with 8.6 made threes a game. The Bulldogs made a season-high 14 three in their 94-79 loss to Missouri State in the MVC Championship game. Also, Drake averaged 9.6 threes in its final five games.
Missouri finished second in SEC play in three-point percentage this season and looks to improve upon last season’s defense in the postseason.
The Tigers will travel to Iowa City, Iowa to take on Drake at 3 p.m. on Friday. PowerMizzou.com will be in Iowa City and will have coverage of the Tigers as long as they're playing this weekend.
